The Solace of Open Spaces
by Kit Chan76
Summary: At the moment that M-204 was destroyed so, too, was what remained of my life. So, too, were the lives of more than thirty million innocent civilians. In an instant I was a killer. More than that, I had committed the largest mass murder in human history.
1. Chapter 1

The worst thing is that I cannot recall the moment that the colony exploded. I was there before the blast, fully aware yet not fully myself, doped up on a cocktail of adrenaline and a potent drug aptly named _Quell_, which flattens emotion while leaving cognition intact, and whose effects are dramatically heightened by the bastardized, unstable zero system clone to which I was subject. I remember pulling the trigger, watching as the incendiary missile fired from the left shoulder-box of the mobile suit and pierced the thick steel shell of the new M-204 colony. When I came back to myself the explosion was still blooming, soundless and formless in the vacuum of space. The flames lingered just for a moment, just long enough to consume the leftover oxygen, and then the colony was gone. Obliterated. Shrapnel and ash floated along on a spherical trajectory, propelled by the force of the blast. Bodies, mangled and dismembered, drifted along the way, though if they were real or imagined I do not know.

I believed in that moment, emotionless yet somehow vaguely disturbed, that this was a moment of divine retribution, punishment for finding some happiness in a life otherwise overwhelmed by death and war. I had fought so long ago, played no small part in victory over tyrannical would-be rulers of Earth and Space, ascended the ranks of the United Earth Sphere Military Force, test piloted nonmilitary mobile suits, was promoted some more, and then vanished mentally, if not physically, suddenly and quietly to seek some solace in the openness of space, to find something—some integral part of my being—that had been lost in the senselessness of constant war. I am not sure I ever found it. And this was my punishment for all of it.

When asked to lead a new, lucrative test flight I did not think that anything could go wrong. I accepted happily and with full understanding that I was in the good graces of a Lord who would not lead me into more senseless violence and a crew of friends who would cover my back without error. I had no reason to worry, not with more than two hundred flights under my belt. I accepted with false confidence. I was shot. I was enslaved. I was numbed and hidden away. And at the moment that M-204 was destroyed so, too, was what remained of my life. So, too, were the lives of more than thirty million innocent civilians. In an instant I was a killer. More than that, I had committed the largest mass murder in human history.

-MSgt. Duo Maxwell


	2. Chapter 2

Statistically speaking, the Peacemillion II was not an extraordinary fleet carrier. It boasted an average number of high-powered ion propulsion engines, a defensively balanced arsenal that bordered on obscene, and no fewer than three full sized hangars, which housed technology and shuttles for high paying clientele all over the United Earth Sphere Nation. By modern standards it was, in fact, an average ship, more fitting for years past when war was a constant and the need to transport weapons and soldiers was at an all time high.

The ship had been built to precise specifications after its prototype and namesake was destroyed in the One Year War, and had patrolled the space between the L3, L4, and L5 colonies for years since its completion. It had seemed silly at the time to construct such a heavily armed and armored vessel in times of peace, but now the great ship stood as a symbol of colonial strength and the power of pacifism and democracy, and it served as the primary development site of new technology designed to bring prosperity and quality of life to all human beings, particularly those living and working in space.

So it was that Preventers Special Officer Lucrezia Noin found herself approaching boarding dock two of the enormous ship, her single passenger transport vessel utterly dwarfed, with a mix of excitement and anxiety raging in her gut. How long had it been since she had left—seven or eight years? Perhaps more. Time passed slowly in the Martian terraforming project, and now that life was beginning to become eventful she had opted to return.

It had been three weeks to the day since she landed at Preventers Headquarters on Earth and practically begged for a position. It was effort poorly spent, though. The Preventers unit was close to home and employed at least half a dozen devoted friends or family members, and Noin herself had worked diligently to pilot the program. It took less than an hour to claim her new position as "Special Technology Officer", in charge of overseeing the development of all projects involving weapons or mobile suits. It was a position that she coveted.

As their name suggested, the Preventers were a special branch of the United Earth Sphere Military designed to keep peace between the colonies and Earth, and to quickly divert any uprisings that may have been rumored. By and large it was boring work to sift through all of the anonymous tips and conspiracy theories. Everyone simply wanted peace. Noin's job was one of the exciting few: She had the opportunity to see first-hand the developments of the future and to witness their testing and, ultimately, their release to the public. She had already seen a dozen presentations by the lunar colony of various deep space and asteroid mining tools that almost completely automated the process, but today's presentation, she thought, would trump the lunar colony by leaps and bounds.

A private investor from Earth had been rumored to be working on developing a specially designed and demilitarized mobile suit for use in terraforming and colony building among the outer planets. Apparently the investor had some hearty connections, because when it came to building and testing the machine he had been able to hire the best mechanical engineering crew that Noin had ever heard of—and that was what brought her to the Peacemillion.

As she disembarked from the transport vessel she was greeted by three familiar faces that seemed, for the most part, to be as happy to see her as she was to see them. The first to clasp her hand was Howard, the lead designer and mechanic for the project as a whole. He had to be pushing sixty years old by now, but his lopsided grin and severely outdated wardrobe made him seem a man half that age. Second behind Howard was fellow Preventers officer Sally Poe, who had been aboard the Peacemillion for close to two weeks, overseeing the final stages of the project. She greeted Noin with a muted grin and a stiff salute before turning about and excusing herself.

"The first test run begins at 0600 tomorrow. Do be sure to get some sleep, and I'll see you then I'm certain," said the ex-army medic as she strode through the air locked door.

With Poe gone, Noin turned her attention to the third and most surprising greeter. Heero stood with his arms crossed, wearing the same blank expression as he had worn since the beginning of the One Year War. He looked not a day older than eighteen—though by now was close to twenty-five—and seemed, at least externally, to be the same quiet and unemotional boy as he had been before Noin left for Mars.

"I received your letter," Noin said after a hasty and unreturned salute. "It was thoughtful of you to send correspondence so far out of the way."

Heero shrugged and turned to walk away as well. "Consider it a kindness," he said absently, "because I would have been a dead man had I not sent it."

Noin could not hide the smirk as she watched her brother-in-law disappear into the winding hallways of the ship. Their relationship had always been interesting, if not always pleasant, but over the years had settled into a kind of cordial tolerance motivated by a mutual desire to keep the peace in their wholly unconventional family.

Howard motioned for Noin to follow him out of the hangar, and she graciously agreed.

"Heero sent you a letter?" said Howard with some surprise as they crossed the threshold into the first of a number of long and maze-like hallways which led to the ship's bridge. "Somewhat unlike him."

Noin felt a grin tugging at the corner of her mouth as she thought of the letter. "Well," she explained, "it came as a heavily encrypted data file through the terraformers' internal messaging system, so 'letter' might be an inappropriate description. Plus, it simply read 'Congratulations, come home soon.'"

Howard chuckled. "With an implied 'Please get my wife out of my way', am I right?"

Noin quirked a brow at the humor, and her confusion was not lost on the old man.

"Relena has been quite excited since the news came in. It's been all she can do to keep the secret from the crew and I have no doubt that poor Heero has taken the brunt of her giddiness. The boy can only take so much of that kind of thing before he's ready to break out the artillery."

Noin grinned again and the two companions fell into comfortable silence for the rest of the walk to the bridge. The place was full of activity and not a single chair remained unoccupied. Monitors flickered with schematics and charts and graphs while their users chatted away through full over-ear headsets and tapped on their keyboards. None of what must have been fifty crewmen were off task, and the discipline that the Peacemillion was so well known for was obvious.

"You run a pretty tight shift, Howard," Noin said, a high compliment in itself. "I'm impressed that you've managed to wrangle so many people to do this work."

Howard shrugged, taking the compliment in stride. "I've had plenty of help with that. Plus, this is the biggest project we've ever had commissioned—the whole crew is excited to see the payoff for their hard work."

"And what is left to do before the test flight?"

Howard shrugged again. "I have no idea. The suit has been space ready for near two days now, by my count, but Duo won't set foot in the thing until every preflight check has been done at least half a dozen times."

Noin was somewhat surprised by this information. "Duo Maxwell is the test pilot?" she asked.

"Best test pilot I've ever seen," said Howard reverently, and then added in afterthought, "and I'm not speaking out of bias either."

"You don't say?"

Howard grinned broadly. "Rumors around here say that he's why Heero stopped piloting, but that's not entirely true. Duo got better at it after Heero settled down, quit flying, and turned his attention to coding and fine-tuning the machines—there was no need to fuss over the arrangement. It happened naturally."

Noin nodded and contemplated the idea as Howard led her off once more toward the crew's quarters. He was mumbling still over the former Gundam pilots, but she was too caught up in her own thoughts to pay much attention. It was not hard to imagine that the pilots would stay near to mobile suits and related technology, nor to believe that Duo had apparently developed some repute as a test pilot, but the thought of the sanguine young man poring over paperwork and checklists suggested that the spontaneity Noin had liked so much in him had gone. Only four years ago, Duo would have jumped into a suit without hesitation, preflight checks be damned.

Howard slid open a small door in a long hallway and motioned Noin inside. It was a comfortably sized bedroom with a simple bunk bolted to the floor, a table, and a desk, but was easily as well-lit and cozy as her room on Earth.

"Primary briefing is at 1700 today," Howard said. "Make yourself at home until then, and if you need anything at all feel free to contact us on the com-link there." He motioned to the wall near the bed where there was mounted a small square speaker box and keypad. "The bridge is 1234, my room is 0124, and Heero is 1337."

"Thank you," said Noin, and she dropped her bags to the ground and made immediately for the bed.

ф

The briefing arrived sooner than Noin would have liked. She sat in a half-sleep-daze beside Sally, who seemed eager and attentive with her tablet close at hand. The two women had exchanged few words since Noin had arrived back on Earth, but now Sally seemed eager to speak. And, if the truth was told, Noin was just as eager to listen despite her exhaustion.

Sally Poe had been around for the long years of Noin's absence, watching as all of their friends, acquaintances, and family grew older and more mature. She had watched as battle hardened soldiers adapted to an almost entirely civilian and overwhelmingly peaceful life. And while Sally had sent some letters and electronic messages, the conversation was always slow and unreliable, and half of the correspondence never even arrived. It was not a surprise, then, that Lucrezia Noin was slightly more than curious.

"I've got a good feeling that you'll be either amazed or amused by this," said Sally brightly as she flicked the tablet's power switch.

"Why is that?" replied Noin.

"Because you've been away for a long time, Noin, and while there haven't been a huge _number_ of changes, the changes that have happened are rather large in scope."

"You've got me scared," said Noin, and she was not being altogether dishonest. After all, she thought, what more drastic change could there be besides the marriage of Heero Yuy and Relena Peacecraft?

"Just watch," said Sally.

On cue, a door slid open near the front of the conference room and a number of faceless, nameless technicians filed in and found their places. Then followed Howard and Heero, both dressed for formal occasion, who sat in designated seats near the entrance, and finally followed Duo Maxwell, somewhat surprisingly dressed in full military regalia—navy blue with tie and various shining medals adorning his left breast—with his arms laden with files and paperwork.

He set everything down between Howard and Heero, then cast a sloppy grin over the congregation that was his audience. And just as Noin was beginning to believe that all was as it had always been, Maxwell turned to business.

"Welcome, all of you, to the primary briefing for test flight zero-one of demilitarized mobile extraction unit, model X42P9-58," he said, and both his voice and expression read of a cold and detached trade report. As he paused a projector flared to life, casting detailed schematics and schedules onto the white wall behind him. He continued, "Final pre-flight check begins at 0400 tomorrow morning, May 16 of AC205."

Maxwell continued the timeline for several minutes, affording Noin an opportunity to glance around. Every member of the meeting was rapt, practically hanging from each word. Most took notes; others simply stared ahead with expressions of the deepest respect. Noin looked to Sally, busy herself typing notes against the flat screen of her tablet, but Sally smirked all the same.

"I told you," she whispered.

Yes, Noin thought, you did.

She turned her attention forward once more and watched, analyzing the way that the former Gundam pilot commanded the stage. No, there had been no physical changes in the boy, except perhaps that he was older and that was not unexpected nor necessarily a bad thing, but the subtle shift in personality and the way he carried himself was unmistakable and dramatic. No way that this was the same disorganized and spontaneous Duo Maxwell of the One Year War, who was always ready to butt in with a sick joke amongst friends but who would never take center stage before a crowd. There was something new and difficult to pinpoint—a refinement and confidence that could be achieved only through years of dedication to a craft.

Noin was pleasantly impressed.

"Tomorrow's test will focus only on aerial and terrestrial movement systems, and range of motion testing for all moving parts of the machine," Duo continued, making frequent reference to the projected schematics. "Additionally, upon request of the donor, we will test gravitational forces during extreme directional changes. Preliminary calculations suggest that maximum G-force for the Dossier 2.0 engine is 3g on the Y axis and 7g on the X and Z axes. Did you get that, Heero?"

"Roger."

"If possible, we will need to regulate and lock these numbers to avoid liability when the suit is released for civilian use-"

Noin was startled when Sally stood suddenly, and Duo stopped mid-word to address her.

"Master Sergeant," she said formally, "if the maximum theoretical output for the Dossier 2 is fixed, how do you intend to test its upper limits? Furthermore, how easy would it be for a civilian to emulate these maximum settings, and what precautions do you intend to take to ensure the safety of the suit's final operator?"

"Thank you. The Dossier is equipped with a factory standard mechanical regulator, which limits the amount of raw power that can be pushed through the engine. Because the regulator is not electronic it can be removed without damaging the engine, if the mechanic has enough knowhow. The average civilian lacks such knowledge, but as a failsafe we have programmed the suit's operating system to recognize compromised equipment. The engines will not fire if the regulator has been tampered with in any way, at least on retail models of the machine. Would you like for me to have Heero explain the code?"

"That won't be necessary," said Sally, and she sat back down. "Thank you, sir."

Sally shot Noin a smug look. An _'I told you so'_ look.

"Master Sergeant?" Noin whispered incredulously.

"Well spoken, isn't he?"

"Does he ever turn it off?"

Sally suppressed a giggle. "Frequently. He's in _command mode_ right now. He'll be the same as always once the briefing is done."

ф

The briefing lasted another hour and a half, and by the time questions had been asked and addressed and the conference dismissed Noin was indeed famished. Needing no prompting, Sally Poe led her directly toward the galley, following behind two-dozen others who had been in attendance and, apparently, had the same idea. The two women exchanged few words. Sally continued contemplating the notes she had taken during the meeting and Noin was just as busy reasoning through exactly what it was that she had just witnessed. Perhaps the shift was the product of added responsibility: In the One Year War Duo had been responsible for very little outside of completing his missions and piloting his suit, and now he was in charge of a large contingent of technicians and mechanics and the success of a multi-billion dollar investment. The pressure must have been enormous.

"Kind of you ladies to join us for dinner!"

An arm dropped over Noin's shoulder and she startled back to reality. When she looked up, as expected, Duo was beside her and Heero behind him, and whatever formality Maxwell had displayed in the meeting was well and fully gone. Yes, he was still dressed in uniform but his tie was loose and the button on his collar unfastened, and he wore on his face the same lopsided grin that he had worn since the first time Noin had met him.

"That was a fantastic presentation," Noin said dumbly before realizing that she had not even greeted the pilot.

"A formality," Duo replied happily, dismissively. "But it's good to see you around here again. Things have been too quiet, maybe it'll shake up a bit with some new, old faces around."

"You don't want things to shake up, Maxwell," Heero said blandly.

Duo waved a hand, patting the air between Heero and himself. "Pssh. A little action wouldn't hurt anyone, would it? Any more paper work and I might cut my throat."

"Don't be melodramatic," Heero replied.

"I'm not! At any rate, I'm starving, and 0400 isn't far off. What's for dinner?"

Noin did not know what was for dinner, even after she had eaten it and excused herself for the evening. She felt better now than she had since she arrived on Peacemillion. Everything was as close to normal as could have been expected, considering the length of her absence and allowing for the natural progression of life after war. It was with a vague feeling of happiness that she changed into her nightclothes and sat on her bed, setting her alarm for five o'clock the next morning.

Just as she was laying down for sleep there came a quiet knock at her door, and when she pressed the button and the portal slid open she was only modestly surprised. There stood Duo, in his nightclothes as well, with a lopsided but significantly subdued grin on his face.

"Sorry to bother you so late," he said. "Mind if I come in?"

"Not at all," Noin replied, and as she moved away from the door she motioned to a chair in the corner. Duo sat and rested his head on his hand. "So why the late visit?" she asked.

"I didn't have the chance to say a decent hello at dinner."

"Well, hello," Noin replied.

"Not quite what I meant," Duo said, "but I appreciate the greeting. I have to ask what brings you back to our sector?"

"Personal business."

"How delightfully vague. Anything at all you'd care to elaborate on?"

Noin was taken aback by the bluntness of his statement. "Is there some reason you need to know?"

Duo shrugged and slumped in his chair. "You're going to be on my six tomorrow, aren't you? I need to be sure that you'll actually have me covered and that you'll be safe doing it. If you can't promise me that then I'll have to find someone else to do the job."

"What specifically are you concerned about?"

"G-force testing."

"I can withstand—"

"I'm well aware of what you can withstand," Duo said shortly. "But _you're_ not what I'm worried about."

"You know, then?"

Duo shrugged again. "Relena is a notoriously bad keeper of secrets. Don't feel bad, I don't care either way as long as it doesn't compromise your performance."

The two sat in awkward silence for a few moments before Noin gathered the courage to speak again. Duo seemed off—short tempered and uncomfortable as he sat there, but she could not determine if it was because he was truly worried or if there was some other cause.

"So," she said tentatively, "Howard says that you've been checking the preflight list a lot lately."

"Standard procedure," Duo replied automatically.

"Standard procedure is to delay your flight for two days while you act neurotic about your preflight checks?"

Duo was suddenly clearly ruffled, and Noin's suspicions confirmed. He hadn't been worried for her sake; there was some other factor at play.

"What's wrong?" she asked, and Duo's face screwed up in confusion. "Are you afraid?"

He shook his head immediately but was still seemingly at a loss for words. "I've never been scared before a flight. I'm not scared. I've just got a strange feeling about this whole thing. Did you see the suit?"

"Yes," Noin replied, "when I first got here I saw it. The thing was in immaculate condition, and I saw your checklists and specs in the briefing. It's a gorgeous machine."

Maxwell nodded. "I'm lucky to be the one that gets to fly it."

"I'm sure everything will be okay. Heero and I will be monitoring everything, and Sally will be on standby in case of any malfunction. My passenger vessel is ready for flight on a moment's notice."

Duo nodded, apparently satisfied, then stood and walked to the door. As he pressed the opening mechanism he turned back around with a relieved grin. "See, this is why I wanted you to have my back."

Then he was gone, the door closed, and Noin was left in quiet contemplation.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: Thanks to everyone for the views, reviews, favorites, and alerts. I'm very much appreciative of feedback. A brief note-the first chapter is meant to be a sort of look back, it is "written" after the events of part 1 and acts as a sort of prologue for the following chapters. It serves to give the reader a bit of insight into characters' thoughts that can't be achieved through the third person perspective. There will be more of these, I'll do my best to label them. Hope you enjoy.

Next morning the mobile suit hangar was full of activity. Technicians wandered all about the elevated rigging in full space gear, checking and double-checking, fine-tuning and making last-minute changes to the program. Among them were both Heero and Duo, who strode beside each other engrossed in conversation. Heero carried a tablet of his own, occasionally tipping it in Duo's direction so that the pilot could see the screen.

"Per the usual, you'll have a direct audio and video link to my station on the bridge," Heero said.

"Standard monitor config?"

"Standard," Heero confirmed. "Eight screens, one for each of your cockpit monitors and another couple for vital readings on you and your machine."

"Have you figured out what Noin will be doing, exactly?" Duo asked with a sigh as he looked up at the monstrous suit.

"She'll help me keep an eye on your vitals from my station. I don't want her out while you're testing, not right now anyway. This is her first operation with us, we need to make sure she knows proper protocol."

Duo nodded. "I guess we'd better get the ball rolling, then. Get everyone to the bridge and contact me as soon as the air lock is clear."

"Roger that," Heero replied, and the two pilots went their separate ways.

Duo watched Heero make his way back toward the air lock, motioning the nearby mechanics to follow and amassing quite an exodus. He noted with passing interest that Sally Poe, Howard, and Noin were watching him intently from the other side of the mirrored air lock holding room, and wondered whether or not Noin had disclosed his lack of confidence in the mission. All the same he saluted them, then went about his final checks.

He jumped from the topmost engineering deck toward the suit's cockpit door, sailing over a wide expanse of empty space, propelled in zero gravity by a push off the railing. He surveyed the hangar for stragglers, then, after contact with the mobile suit's door, he signaled to Howard the all clear and entered the cockpit.

The suit's cockpit was cozy, a fair reminder of the Gundam Deathscythe minus the few personal modifications he had made over years of use. The seat was plush enough to absorb impact but stiff enough to keep a pilot alert, and the four-point safety harness hugged him tightly but comfortably. Six monitors greeted him when he settled in, arranged in two rows and three columns, and once they were online they would afford him a panoramic view of all space 180 degrees around. Joysticks, throttle controls, and pedals were all in the usual place, modeled similarly to the Gundams, and two long panels of sixty-seven separate colored keys rested on the far sides of each throttle.

Monitor three, above and to the right of Duo's head, flared to life and Heero's image appeared in a small box in the bottom left corner along with an incoming communication dialog. Duo tapped the screen, Heero's image came to life, and Yuy looked impatient.

"Taking your time, I see."

Duo was not amused.

"Let's get this started, then," Heero continued, unfazed by Duo's sour look.

"Activating monitors one through six," Duo said flatly, and as he spoke he ran his hand expertly along the left keyboard, entering a separate command for each screen. One by one they lit, and except for Heero's videoconference Duo had an unobstructed view of the whole hangar.

"Monitors one to six are live," Heero echoed, as much for Maxwell's benefit as for the benefit of the poor developers tasked with recording each detail of the flight.

"Pressurizing and oxygenating cockpit," Duo reported, and entered another series of commands.

"Bring up your stat overlay on monitor six," Heero instructed.

Another command, and the bottom monitor on Duo's right displayed a dozen dynamic bars and meters that monitored everything from oxygen saturation to power output to speed.

"Cockpit is at 100% pressure, and oxygen levels are stable. You're clear to remove your helmet," Heero said.

Duo unfastened the helmet and breathed deeply before placing the thing in the small storage space between the back of his chair and the cockpit wall.

"You okay, Maxwell?" Heero asked. "Your APM is low."

Duo could hear Noin ask over Heero's shoulder what that meant.

"Actions per minute," Duo replied automatically as he pounded in another command. "How fast I enter commands into the system. Good morning, Noin, there should be a headset floating around somewhere that you can use."

There was a pause, a rustling over the communicator, and then a muted 'thank you' from Noin as she situated her own device.

"How low is low?" Duo asked.

"Significantly below average. I've got you clocked in at 150 for your last three strings."

Duo grimaced and cracked his knuckles, slightly embarrassed. "Just warming up," he lied, but secretly worried that his nerves were getting the better of him. He shook off the doubt and breathed deeply again. "Open the hangar, let's get this done with."

ф

Noin watched Heero's monitors with no small degree of fascination as Duo put the mobile suit through its paces. His blank expression was displayed on the bridge's enormous main screen along with an overlay of vital signs and mobile suit statistics, the same that displayed on Heero's. She remained silent, feeling useless and lost as the test flight progressed. Heero and Duo exchanged concise commands and echoed reports and feedback to each other with extreme precision, and except for the typing of the technicians on the bridge and a slight bit of feedback from Duo's mobile suit, the whole place was silent.

"The left engine throttle is a bit sticky," Duo said, and Heero jotted down the note. "Right side is fine."

"You're entering L4 colony airspace," Heero replied. "Exercise caution."

"Roger that."

Silence fell again, and Noin looked back to Heero's monitors. Everything seemed to have regulated since the outset of the flight: Heero had made a point to illustrate to Noin how Duo's vitals were high at the outset, but had since leveled out, and his APM had jumped thirty strokes in the last half hour. All was as well as could have been expected.

"He gets the jitters sometimes," Heero explained over a muted microphone. "Especially on big projects. It makes no sense, really, because he knows that nothing will go wrong. Odd that he came to you about it."

Noin shrugged and watched as Duo struggled with the left throttle. The thing had apparently jammed, which Maxwell reported with some degree of irritation, and in order to get it loose again he was forced to hit it, open palmed and with some sizeable force, and knock it out of position.

"We'll need to get that fixed," Heero said, and it was the most lighthearted thing Noin had ever heard out of him. Then he unmated the microphone and said: "Don't break that machine, Maxwell. Sticky throttle or not that's worth more money than you'll see in a lifetime."

"Roger that."

Another long stretch of silence as Duo completed range-of-motion testing, and then he reported in again.

"Range-of-motion tests are complete with 87% success and a damned sticky throttle. Am I clear to begin speed and G-force testing?"

"All clear. Air-space around the L4 colony should be clear of civilian craft, but keep an eye open."

"Both eyes, always," Duo replied. "Commence speed testing."

Graphs dipped and spiked as Maxwell ran the suit along, then died altogether when the suit stalled. Duo replaced his helmet and gave a brief report on the matter, re-pressurized and oxygenated the cockpit, and went off again. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred kilometers per hour he traveled, switching directions frequently but making steady progress away from the safety of Peacemillion, toward L4 where terrestrial motion tests were scheduled for 1200 hours.

Then suddenly he stopped.

"Did it stall again?" Heero asked impatiently, and when Duo did not immediately respond he seemed irate. "Maxwell, why did you stop? You haven't even reached half of the projected—"

"You're absolutely sure that L4 airspace is clear?" Duo interrupted suddenly, and on the monitor his expression was some combination of confusion and worry.

"I checked this morning before you were even awake," Heero replied, and he shot an uncertain glance Noin's direction. "No vessels have come or gone since yesterday."

"Were all the colonies aware of our testing?"  
"Of course."

Then Duo leaned forward, straining his eyes as he peered off into the distance. "Then what the hell is that?" he whispered, then paused. "I'm placing this test on hold."

The bridge's main screen went suddenly blank as Duo disconnected the feed, and Heero and Noin exchanged meaningful looks. The bridge erupted with worried sounding talk as technicians and mechanics wondered what the issue had been. Then came a dialog on Heero's central monitor calling for a private conference. Heero answered immediately and was greeted by a thoroughly unnerved looking Duo.

"Clear the bridge," Duo ordered, his voice unwavering. "No questions, this has become a private matter. Tell them the suit stalled and I'm working out the kinks. I can't get the engine to fire. I don't care, just get the crew out of there."

Heero looked to Noin, and the woman took his silent command. She stood and proclaimed with authority that there had been a minor malfunction, to take a break until it had been worked out but remain on standby. Within a minute, half the bridge was cleared under false pretense.

"Do you see it?" Duo said after a long while. "Monitor two—it's small."

Heero leaned closer to his monitor and nodded. Indeed a tiny black spot was blocking out the starlight in the distance. His stomach sank. "I see it."

"What should we do about it? If you're right about L4 airspace then it's not a civilian craft—they're all painted white anyway, we'd be able to get a clearer visual on it."

Heero contemplated this for a long moment, trying to predict what Relena would recommend in this situation. Total pacifism, he thought, is fine as long as everyone else agrees with it. But if this was an enemy…someone who didn't agree with Relena's ideals…

"Proceed with extreme caution," Heero said. "Get close enough to identify it and then we can figure things out."

"Roger."

Tentatively, Duo eased the suit toward the dark spot, squinting into the blackness and trying to make out the source. It was of similar size to a transport vessel, not much larger than Duo's own suit, but was obviously equipped with a high functioning cloaking device.

Duo stopped perhaps a hundred yards away and drew a deep, nervous breath. Heero watched on the monitor as Duo's blood pressure spiked, his heartbeat quickened.

"Can you see it?" Heero asked.

"Shit!"

A searing light brightened the monitor like a flash bang, and the metallic shredding of metal sounded so severely through Heero's headset that he literally threw the thing away from his ears. He reeled for a moment through the pain and tinnitus, clutching absently at his ears, and when next he looked at the monitor he was rightly worried.

Duo was still there, wide eyed and frantically fastening the helmet to his space suit as the pressure and oxygen levels in the cockpit plummeted. The pilot was clearly shaken by the chaos. His hands shook so violently that it was a wonder he ever attached the helmet, and not once did he even glance toward Heero. Instead he began attempting to re-oxygenate again.

Heero retrieved his headset in a panic. "What was that?" he cried.

Duo calmed eerily at the sound of Heero's voice. "I think it just opened fire on me," he replied, a quiver in his voice. "The cockpit was compromised—was it a suit malfunction?" He looked around the cockpit, though at what Heero could not be certain.

"Get out of there, idiot!"

"What is that thing? Is it a mobile suit? An MD?"

"Maxwell, get back to the ship!"

Duo was silent, and when Heero glanced at the vital readout his panic was multiplied. His blood pressure had tanked and was falling fast, his pulse remained high, and oxygen levels remained low. He looked back to the video readout and caught his breath. Many tiny crimson droplets floated like tiny beads in front of the camera lens, obscuring Duo's image.

It seemed that Maxwell had also taken note of the blood, as he was suddenly very intently focused on something well beneath the field of vision of the camera. Heero remained silent, watching as Duo's expression shifted from a complete blank to confusion to sudden realization and utter panic as he raised his hand before his face.

"I've been shot," he said dumbly.

Heero realized at once that Duo's apparent stupidity was not stupidity at all, but instead must have been shock. He was bleeding out fast, and even through the semi-opaque safety shielding of his space suit's helmet Heero could see that Duo was growing paler by the moment.

"Noin!" Heero roared, and the woman rushed in, closely followed by Howard and Sally Poe. Heero stood, panicked himself, and pointed speechlessly at his monitors. Suddenly he was surrounded, the others peering intently over his shoulder.

Duo was completely silent, continued staring ahead, confused. But then it seemed he was struck by immediate understanding, and he surged into motion. Three hundred APM had his mobile suit turned one hundred and eighty degrees, full throttle back toward Peacemillion.

"Shit!" He cried. "Shit!"

"How bad is it?" Heero replied. "How badly were you hit?"

"Shit!"

Heero felt himself being shoved aside, the headset ripped from his head as Sally Poe, in the boldest, most daring move he had ever seen, took his place by force. Caught clumsily in mid-fall by Noin and Howard, he watched the medic take control.

"Where?" she said forcefully.

"Gut."

"Blood?"

Duo nodded, and then there came another flash, the sound of gunfire, and Duo ducked. The left two monitors flickered and died. Sally Poe muted the microphone and began issuing orders.

"He's under fire, Noin you get to your transporter and get out there! Heero, get Relena on the line, we need permission to return fire immediately. Howard, I'll need backup video for everything transpiring from the beginning of the test flight."

The three of them stood, bewildered and afraid.

"Get going!" Poe yelled, and then she unmuted the microphone. "You need to stay calm, Duo. Breathe and slow down. You can't afford any mistakes made in haste."

More gunfire, and Sally cast one more angry glance at her three onlookers before they darted from the room, each to his own task.

"I need you to tell me what you saw. What was it? What did it look like?"

"Are you seriously debriefing me at a time like this?" Duo yelled, his panic replaced by sudden anger. "Why? Do you think I'm—"

His sentence was interrupted by what Sally Poe could only describe as an animalistic cry. She watched as he doubled over, held in place solely by the harness. He gasped and retched and trembled, unable to restrict his cries. The mobile suit stopped dead.

"You've got to keep moving," Sally said when he eventually righted himself. "Can you pan your camera downward, I need to see the wound."

Duo did as he was told, and Sally held her breath. The wound was worse than she thought, the blood loss only suppressed by the zero gravity. A sizeable piece of his suit had been ripped away, and a hole gaped in his right side two fingers wide and so deep that Poe could not see the end.

"You've got to get back here," she said quietly.

Duo eased the mobile suit forward, and Sally watched, terrified, as more blood flowed freely from the wound, accelerated by the movement of the suit.

"Oh, God! Stop moving!"

He stopped.

"Are you going to watch me die?"

Sally could not find the words to respond, because she could not refute his question. With gunfire blazing in the distance, metallic ricochets bouncing against the exterior of the suit, Duo bent double and grimacing in constant and insurmountable pain, she could say nothing to comfort him. All she could do was watch and wait and hope that no more bullets pierced the hull.

ф

The cockpit shuddered as bullets connected, and it was everything that Duo Maxwell could do to maintain his composure while Sally Poe was watching. If he was honest with himself he was terrified and utterly bewildered, and yet a desire remained somewhere in him to fight back. Better to die fighting than an embarrassed wreck, he thought.

With renewed determination, Duo fired the engines and pressed forward, watching his monitors intently as the black spot followed. The faster he went the faster he bled, and each time he glanced at Sally over the communicator she seemed more and more distressed. She was calling at him frantically to stop moving, to slow the mobile suit down, but still he pressed on until he noticed, rather stunned, that he could scarcely hear her.

With grim determination, he looked once more at the monitor. "Sally, I'm going. Have someone retrieve the suit as soon as possible."

He watched Sally's eyes grow wide; her mouth gaped wide in protest, but before she could argue he bashed his fist against the keys, and the screen went black.

"No more running," he said to himself, and whirled the suit back around. "I don't know who you are, but you're mistaken if you think I'm going down without a fight."

Duo cut the power to the engines, using the suit's momentum in zero gravity to propel is backward, and unleashed everything the machine had. He fired two dozen flares dead into the center of the black spot and tossed two industrial grade thermal axes, pointed end first, knocking the craft out of cloak and unveiling its true nature.

The thing was a civilian-looking craft, black and vaguely rocket-shaped, but larger and apparently better equipped. On each of its wings was mounted a large turret from which equally large rounds were being fired. On either side of its rounded nose were beam cannons similar to those of the Gundams that appeared primed and ready for immediate fire.

The only weapon that Duo had was a thermal borer, designed for drilling holes in deep space asteroids and small comfort when faced with a genuine arsenal. All the same Maxwell drew the poorly balanced weapon and held it awkwardly in the mobile suit's hand, and he readied himself for impact.

ф

As Lucrezia Noin piloted her Preventer spacecraft toward Duo's last reported location her mind swam with questions. It had been several years since any report of violent activity had even been rumored, let alone substantiated by shots fired. The action had been deliberate, well-planned and executed so flawlessly that no one—not even the former Gundam pilots themselves—had realized their peril until it was right on top of them. Whoever had devised the attack was no one Noin wanted to tangle with.

Minutes after departing from the Peacemillion's hangar a video call flashed onto her control deck. She flipped the transmission channels to their _open_ position, and Heero appeared, more irate than she had ever seen him before.

"Relena won't allow us to return fire," he said, and Noin could tell that he was holding back a fair bit of rage.

"What? Why?"

"She said that we couldn't determine motive—we don't know if the shots were accidental or—" Heero stopped and rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist, flustered. "Just get out there and get him back."

Heero disconnected the call before Noin could respond, and before she had the chance to reflect on the news Sally was contacting her from the bridge. Again she hit the switch, and Sally was wearing the same expression that Heero had been.

"No return fire," Noin said blankly as she pushed the throttle of her tiny craft.

"Then we're going to have a dead man on our hands," replied Sally. "More shots were fired after you left. We've got zero identification on the enemy and Duo completely disconnected himself from the A/V feed."

Noin was silent.

"He's going to bleed out!"

"I'll do what I can."

Which was not much, Noin thought, except hope like hell that whatever had opened fire had got what they wanted and left.


End file.
